"Literary" Ugliness in the Soviet Union
Woll, Josephine
The Russian Republic's section of the Union of Soviet Writers has become known as an enclave of nationalist xenophobia. A partial transcript, printed in Ogonek 48, 1989, of its sixth plenary...
...It should be settled once and for all, without any nonsense about liberalism...
...It's a chain reaction . .. and very logical...
...It used to be that when writers were worked over at meetings, it was because of coercion, pressure, often from the party...
...I haven't read the whole book...
...Sinyaysky's pen name] (Laughter, stormy applause) ANDREY TURKOV: I didn't much like the excerpt from Sinyaysky's book that Oktyabr published...
...Somebody mentioned the Jews, so let's talk about them...
...It struck me as frivolous, I read it with irritation...
...The soil was fertile . . . and just look how that virus has metastasized...
...Most of us sitting here are peasants after all—so let's show our guts...
...D'Anthes [the Frenchman who killed Pushkin in a duel] can be forgiven, he didn't know against whom he was lifting his hand...
...Claiming that the editorial board of Oktyabr and its editor Ananev "have forever stained their name before the Russian people," the letter writers "consider their behavior incompatible with the title of writers of Russia, and demand that the magazine's staff be removed...
...The transcript continues for several more pages...
...in deference to nonbelievers, he did not ask them to chant the portion of the religious funeral service in memory of the dead...
...This lack of respect can be explained by the fact that we Russian writers comprise only 20 percent of the Leningrad organization...
...That's precisely why I was asked to announce at this plenum that Leningrad writers will not participate in a single "criticism session" [euphemism for public condemnation] of writers or publications...
...A partial transcript, printed in Ogonek 48, 1989, of its sixth plenary session demonstrated this orientation...
...After the publication of Sinyaysky I can no longer publish in the kind of magazine Oktyabr has become...
...These were his final words: "I came up to the dais to say this to you: Look at yourselves, look in the mirror...
...Let each one take a look and, horrified, ask: where are you going, what are you doing...
...Sinyaysky himself regards the book as his homage, however idiosyncratic and ironic, to his beloved Pushkin...
...The letter refers to "the libelous work of that undisguised Russophobe Sinyaysky . . . against the Russian genius...
...This virus could nurture a mass of such cosmopolitans...
...I have traversed Russia from Kola to [Kamchatka] and what I saw is that people are reading Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin, and not Abram Tertz...
...Applause) . . . Our fatherland in this context is Pushkin...
...I understand why...
...Buylov's most ardent advocate was Tatyana Glushkova, a woman who considered that she was "risking her life" to express her views in this "heroic, mortally dangerous contest, .. . just as much as a Palestinian, as someone in South Africa who protests against the Pretoria regime...
...We have Zoshchenko and Akhmatova [major Russian writers persecuted under Stalinism] on our conscience, and Brodsky...
...It may begin with Sinyavsky, but then it continues: just a few days ago the press reported an outrage committed against the Pushkin monument in Kishinev...
...The Leningrad writers' organization bears its share of responsibility for literary and ideological reprisals of the past...
...With consequences...
...Laughter, applause) [Buylov attributes to Gorbachev an estimate that Jews occupy 20 percent of the leadership posts, but] . . . we should triple that, because of the ones who have different last names and hide behind another nationality...
...On my own I came to wonder, why are they everywhere...
...Not more than 80 people, out of 430...
...And . . . I simply want to say that we [at Nash sovremennik] have recently published a whole series of works from the Russian Federation...
...It is sick...
...Let Ananev [Oktyabr's editor] .. . start a new magazine, called the European or European Home, and let Ananev or Sinyaysky or both of them together run it...
...A wave of poisoned words is spreading across Russia...
...But this is our magazine, and we certainly will not give it up to anyone...
...And today I want to repeat these words: "The fatherland is in danger...
...I know there are not a few among you who were simply unable to read that [Sinyaysky's excerpt] through to the end...
...In contrast, I will tell you that the journal Oktyabr [October], also a Russian magazine and one with a larger print-run, published not a single line in 1988 by a writer or poet of our Russian Federation...
...It is a dishonorable legacy...
...Such a vast nation, suddenly [reduced to pleading], "Just let us worship our own god...
...EDS...
...That's all that I wanted to say to you...
...The translator's comments are bracketed within the material or italicized...
...Buylov complains that when a Zionist Committee is established in Moscow there isn't a word about it in Pravda, whereas Pamyat is continuously denounced in the press.] I'm not speaking about Jews, there is something worse than Jews—cosmopolitans...
...Applause) Sinyaysky's Progulki s Pushkinym is Russophobia and an affront to Pushkin...
...If it were possible somehow to challenge these people to a duel (applause), then it would probably be much easier for me...
...That's the problem...
...Do you understand what kind of virus...
...Get to the point...
...Jews are the only nationality, it seems, who have an interest in this discord among us...
...When Aleksandr Rekemchuk attempted to read a letter from the liberal writers' group Aprel, charging specific journals with sheltering the most extreme elements and claiming that Judeophobia has become the programmatic basis of all the activities of the leadership of the RSFSR Writers Union, he was interrupted by catcalls and shouts to sit down...
...Do you understand what kind of microbe, what kind of epidemic is infecting you...
...The following text combines cited and paraphrased excerpts from Ogonek, with explanatory notes where necessary...
...Nowadays nobody is giving orders to the Russian Secretariat...
...We Russian writers had no choice but to leave the Leningrad writers' organization and create our own association...
...Do you understand the problem...
...Scenes of the Sixth Plenum of the Writers' Union of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR—Russian Republic), Nov...
...Applause) . . Let's take a look at the virus that has penetrated our system...
...But probably because Russians as a rule don't bear grudges, I have been somewhat surprised 198 • DISSENT European Revolutions and dissatisfied by much of what I hear in this auditorium...
...Applause) YUVAN SHESTALOV: Someone is trying to destroy our spirituality...
...On every score—as Russians, as writers, as publicists, as men, goddammit...
...Turkov tries to suggest that some of Russia's most cherished writers "and patriots" occasionally expressed a sense of despair about Russia...
...One elderly poet, Mikhail Dudin, sadly remarked that the hatred he heard all around him could only engender more hatred...
...Indignant cries and noise in hall, shouts: "Stick to Pushkin...
...he is repeatedly interrupted by angry outbursts from the floor.] YURY BORODKIN: Socialism and the fatherland are in danger...
...The first group of comments refers to the publication, in the monthly magazine Oktyabr (October), of a five-page excerpt from Andrey Sinyaysky's 178-page book, Progulki s Pushkinym (Strolls with Pushkin...
...TRANSLATED AND PREPARED BY JOSEPHINE WOLL 200 • DISSENT...
...A voice from the floor: "What SPRING • 1990 • 199 European Revolutions nonsense...
...Why are we dragging this out...
...They are smart...
...How could we have come to this point...
...Russians now need support a million times more than Jews...
...One or two members came to the support of Arro...
...The words "masculine" (muzhskoy), "peasants" (muzhiki), and "courage" (muzhestvo) all have the same root in Russian.] VLADIMIR Atuto [a representative from the Leningrad branch of the Writers' Union]: When the body of Russian literature is burning and bloodied, how can people allow themselves to organize such campaigns...
...No matter at whose command and no matter how desirable the ends...
...Isn't it clear that sooner or later they lead to nothing but chaos...
...Noise, cries of "Shame...
...But then why have they led us down a blind alley...
...Well all right, good, I agree...
...Several speakers support Sodruzhestvo's call for recognition.] Arro [distressed at what will ultimately result in, he says, Nazi-type categories of purity]: Comrades, dividing writers into "clean" and "unclean," "Russian" and "Russian-language" is impossible...
...Enough demagogy...
...It's preparing to execute a magazine on its very own initiative...
...At the request of Vladimir Karpets, the audience stood in memory of all murdered Russians, "beginning with the tsar's family...
...We must expose it, we must challenge that powerful wave, otherwise how will we stop it from spreading among people of bad conscience, Russophobes all over the country...
...YURY BONDAREV [novelist, co-chairman of the plenary session]: The issue is the moral and spiritual atmosphere in your organization...
...I was told—because they're smart...
...Let's show what we're worth...
...Buylov was reprimanded by the chairman, not for the substance of his remarks but because his fervor transgressed the norms of "civilized" discussion...
...How long will Russian writers, lawful sons of the Russian soil, . . . groan under the heel of the oppressors and usurpers...
...Russian culture does not deserve this...
...The role of our Russian magazines [that is, magazines published under the auspices of the RSFSR Writers' Union] is one of unification...
...It is perfectly clear that this is hooliganism of a serious sort...
...It comes from several Leningrad writers' groups that have broken off from the official union Arro represents...
...The virus was injected, and it has spread...
...Thus far the campaign to remove Ananev from his editorship has not been successful.] SERGEY VORONIN [a Leningrad writer who belongs to one of the groups that signed the letter]: There is a lack of elementary respect toward us, Russian writers, on the part of a Russian-language group of writers, the overwhelming majority of whom are of Jewish nationality...
...He pleaded for an end to the hatred...
...He was whistled and laughed at...
...Magazine space is precious, and it was given over to works by members of the third emigration: Sinyaysky, Sasha Sokolov, [Sergey] Dovlatov . . . [Kunyaev implies that these authors were chosen not because of merit but because they were previously forbidden fruit.] I—as a Russian writer, pained on behalf of all Russian literature—am wounded...
...To applause, he asks the plenum to recognize his association, Sodruzhestvo (Community), as the official and legal organization of Leningrad writers.] ANATOLY BUYLOV: This is how low we've sunk...
...I'm ashamed to listen to you...
...Sinyaysky and Oktyabr know...
...Most did not...
...After Arro's statement, interrupted more than once by angry cries, a letter supposedly bearing 18,000 signatures is read aloud...
...13-14, 1989 STANISLAV KUNYAEV [Essayist and currently chief editor, Nash sovremennik (Our Contemporary), a monthly magazine of politics and the arts]: Dear friends...
Vol. 37 • April 1990 • No. 2
